Adjusting Rates of Homicide Clearance by Arrest for Investigation Difficulty: Modeling Incident- and Jurisdiction-Level Obstacles. (August 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Roberts, Aki
• Is Part Of: Homicide studies. Volume 19:Number 3(2015:Aug.)
• Page Start: 273
• Page End: 300
• Publication Date: 2015-08
• Subjects: NIBRS -- methodology -- clearance -- policing -- investigation -- multi-level model; Homicide -- Periodicals; 364.152
• DOI: 10.1177/1088767914536984
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1088-7679

Abstract

Scholars have criticized the use of homicide clearance rates to measure police performance, as many incident- and jurisdiction-level characteristics beyond police control influence these rates. The current study estimated adjusted measures and rates of homicide arrest clearance, accounting for jurisdictional and incident characteristics related to investigation difficulty, for 85 agencies. Comparing agencies' raw and adjusted measures indicates that 16% would be miscategorized as being above or below average in performance if the assessment of performance used raw rates. Adjusted homicide clearance rates, while not a singular indicator of overall success, offer a better police agency performance measure than raw rates.